Rubbery Figures

17/08/2013

.Just watched a segment on the news. Apparently Tony is very popular. That is if you believe the media and take them at face value.

But can we indeed take them at face value? I started to notice last weekend a sudden spurge of Abbott activity. It was first reported that Abbott was getting way more likes on facebook then Rudd. Presumably, the electorate is to just give it up. That Abbott is home and hosed and that resistance is futile. How can anyone defy facebook likes right?

News (thats right News) reported how popular Abbott has been since the election. I had a look at this. And it appeared to my untrained eye that something was very very odd. I mentioned the oddness on twitter. I got a lot of hate mail. Hmmm why? I mean why? All I said was that the graph of Abbott’s likes has spiked. The spike is steeper and faster than what it should be.

At the same time, a more savvy person with way more computer technology know how than I was also looking at this. He published his results here.

Llewellyn Stevens had a little look see into Abbott’s facebook likes and discovered that Abbott is more popular than Facebook itself, according to his like spurt that is. Note. Since Llewllyn did his study last weekend, Abbott has moved form 101k likes to 160k likes. The spike is beyond Justin Beiber proportions.

At the same time that I and others were noticing the spike in likes, I asked myself if we would see a similar spike in twitter followers. I checked. That night Abbott had 110,000 followers. The next morning It was 125,000. By that night it was 165,000. And the next morning it was upto 190k. I called bullshit. The coalition denied everything. The following day, on Monday, Latika and a few other journos also started to discuss Abbott’s twitter following from out of no where. Suddenly the coalition were saying they were in the process of removing all the fake twitter followers. If you google Abbott fake twitter, you get an interesting picture.

The story does admit that there was a splurge of activity and then it comments that the followers had been culled to a more normal 165k. What the fuck? 165k was NOT normal. As I mentioned, he went from 110k to 165k in less than 24 hours. So calling 165k normal is ridiculous.

Even more so when you look at the Abbott’s latest twitter friends. People who only came into existence as twitter accounts for a whole 8 mins. That had sent maybe 2 tweets ever and both exactly at the same time. And oddly friends of Tony despite not living in the same country or even writing in the same language.

Most of Abbott’s twitter followers all seem to have a number on the end of their names. The one stand out in the pic above is the Australian Oil and Gas industry. Not even I would be surprised with that mob following Tony. More interesting is they are a PROMOTED follower (that means money has been exchanged).

At the time I wrote this blog, Abbott’s last follower had just come into existence as a twitter account and had sent one tweet only 2 mins before following Tony. The account has no followers, is following three others and had as I mentioned, made one tweet. I will let you do your own checking of his followers, but it is not by any way a return to non fake levels. Unless prior to the surge of fake followers, he only had fake followers.

So where am I going with this? Whoopee do! Rudd has fake accounts and fake likes too. True. But Abbott’s only started after the election was called. Rudd’s account has been around for years. Clearly this was by design. Now you are all wondering how can they possibly do this? Well they run bots. Applications that create a fake name made up by combining a random first name and a random last name and then added a number on the end. The names they use could be sourced from the white pages, or the internet. Or from friends in your face book or names on your page or a file. Dont matter. What matters is creating the account, generating a tweet or three, and then linking followers.

Whoopee do Ash I hear again. So what? Well you will often see on TV a report of on line activity. Abbott is dominating. Why? Because every minute a fake tweet is sent by a fake account to a list of fake accounts who then retweet. This raised traffic and makes it appear that Abbott is a popular guy.

While all that is going on, you got the media manipulation in full flight also reporting that the election is all but over “according to the polls”. Recently reports about Dobell and Forde have been making headlines. Samples of 500 from an electorate of 100,000 people report it so it must be true. The one thing pollsters dont mention is WHERE the polling was done. You see a electorate is comprised of MULTIPLE BOOTHS. You get coalition booths and you get green booths and you get ALP booths. So how do you make it look like the ALP is on the nose? You poll the electorate in the coalition booths. How do you make it look like the coalition are in trouble? You poll from the ALP booths. Its why after spending 5 weeks last election telling us Abbott was the under dog, then leading, then losing, and bang. Out of no where, on the last day before the election, they reported a hung parliament. Roy Morgan has been reporting that since the start of the election, but News Ltd only reports News Poll if it can get away with it.

Oh Ash! You are conspiracy mad son! Why would the media want to manipulate the electorate? hahahahahahaha (its a rhetorical question)

I have watched the media lie and manipulate the electorate for three years. Not one interview went by without a reporter asking the Ex Prime Minister about her ‘lie’. This was exposed all so transparently by Tony Windsor in his speech when he reminded the house that one of the conditions of minority government in 2010 was pricing carbon. If you listen to the media and so called respected reporters, the only one who was doing this was Gillard. WRONG!!! And also not reported in the media as much was Abbott was competing for government alongside Gillard and did so for 17 days with Abbott once again making a new offer only hours before the independents held that famous press conference.

Yeah that’s right Australia. Abbott was planning to price carbon right along side Gillard. And only after he lost the support of the independents that he started warning the nation that Gillard planned to put a price on carbon. Maybe even a tax. Now why did Abbott say tax?

Because the thought had crossed his mind. I so wish Windsor releases the content of that blackberry. Anyway, so out of all this, the media run with the game that Gillard had lied. Not once did they even bother to explain what a minority government was. Not once did they even ask the independents what it was that Abbott had offered. But they did nail Julia to a cross. A statement made ONCE became painted as a major election promise. No mention of the article in the paper where Gillard clearly says that her intention IS to price carbon about a week before the election. Nope. She lied and that was all they wrote.

But the media not only obfuscate by not explaining a situation, they also engaged in out right lies and deception. You can rattle off a list. From a story in January 2013 that linked Slippers wine tour with the Gillard government. This despite that Slipper was given the tour only one month after he voted for Abbott as party leader. Pork barrelling with a fragrant bouquet. Further the incident occurred when Gillard was deputy, not the prime minister and Slipper was not an independent, but a coalition member. But if you look up the SMH story, the headline heralds that the government was somehow linked

No mention or even an attempt to interview anyone from the coalition who may have approved this tour. No. Just a implied link to Gillard. Another nail in her coffin.

Can you berate the reporters here? They write a story, but someone does the editing. Someone comes up with the headline. And sometimes, reality needs to be totally changed.

Albo had discovered that Abbott had had the gall to tell a “community forum” that if he was elected he would CREATE Infrastructure Australia. Albo had a ball with it in Question Time.

Mr ALBANESE: I saw a bit of policy from those opposite on 14 June—last week. The South Coast Register had the headline ‘Abbott show rolls into town’. It says—this is a direct quote:

If we are elected we will form an organisation called Infrastructure Australia …

Well, there’s a thought! There’s an idea! Why didn’t we think of that? Then he went on to say this:

… which will do its best to rationally and scientifically look at the various infrastructure projects and rank the best on public cost benefit …

There’s another idea! Why didn’t we think of that? Melbourne Metro—we did it. It is on the list. Cross River Rail—it is on the list. All 15 out of 15 projects are on the list, and we are funding them, and this bloke is telling state governments: ‘No, don’t accept the money. Stick with the Bombay solution on Cross River Rail of removing seats so people can stand up.’

Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, on a point of order: before the Leader of the House blows a gasket, I will slow him down. But, to be relevant, surely he needs to explain whether the NBN underwent a cost-benefit analysis as part of Infrastructure Australia.

The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. That was a complete abuse of a point of order.

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER: It was not a good point of order, actually; it was an absolute abuse of points of order.

… then all levels of governments will be able to fund what they choose to be the one that makes most sense.

So we have cost-benefit analysis. We have Infrastructure Australia. We have the system set up which doesn’t say, ‘We fund roads but we don’t fund rail.’ It says you do proper analysis and that you don’t have bias according to mode. That is precisely what we have done. It is precisely the good policy structure that we have set up. This bloke has not noticed that we have been funding public transport in our capital cities and urban centres. He also has not noticed Infrastructure Australia; so, to help him, I table the national infrastructure priority list, which has on it the NBN— (Time expired)

I had such a laugh I thought I would track the article down, which I did and there was the quote EXACTLY as read out by Albo. Next morning, I go to write the article and can you imagine my surprise when Abbott’s words had changed overnight. The Coalition had manipulated reality. It turns out the reporter that they had sent to write the article was deaf or had not pressed play on the recording device. Where the day before the paper had reported the event exactly as Albo described it and quoted, suddenly this was no longer the case.

Abbott’s quote which had been reported as “If we are elected we will form an organisation called Infrastructure Australia” had suddenly changed to be “Well, in the case of the Federal Government we are going to have this organisation, Infrastructure Australia”.

This alone is utterly outrageous. And it did not get one single report in the media. Not one! This is Big Brother right here. Where words said had been edited and changed and anyone who says otherwise will be reeducated. How the hell this can be done in 2013 was beyond me. But there it is. Abbott said one thing. That was reported and then it was changed to make it look like it never happened. But wait. There is more.

When NoFibs.Com.au revealed Abbott’s battle rorts saga, the papers were originally keen to report the truth. Less than two hours later, the media returned to telling lies. No fibs and the correspondence between Abbott’s office and government departments clearly show Abbott was asked more than once to make a complete payment and he continued to hold off until the last minute. So yes. This was a headline that matched the facts

He WAS forced to repay. But very soon, and no doubt after a phone call to a friend or two, the article online changed. No longer was Abbott forced to pay. Instead, it seems he did it out of the kindness of his heart.

Clearly his spin doctors took offence to reality and changed it once again. They even added a year of the incident. But the headline is false. Sure the rort happened in 2009, but he did not pay it till three years later. I too would love to not pay a bill for three years. Meanwhile, while Abbott was allowed three years to get his affairs in order, Slipper was referred to the AFP directly. Currently he is in a case that has cost the government over $200k to recoup a amount of $1000. The best $200k of propaganda the coalition ever forced the government to spend. Not a mention from Steve Lewis.

More recently, I have been the hated of the moment again when I rallied at Abbott’s sexism re the candidate in Lindsay. A comment made in front of his daughters who for some reason get more air time then coalition candidates. Previously I inferred that Abbott was using his daughters as a virtual pimp, using them to buy votes amongst young men with hard ons. Or maybe as similar usage in Indonesia to make Indonesia turn back the boats. Andrew Bolt took exception to this. How dare I defy the immaculate virgins. This got me more hate mail. Soon after, Nofibs.com.au had a brilliant expose of the people behind the coalition digitial dirty tactics team.

The full article is here . This is what really got me outraged and not only because my name is amongst those targeted. These people have collated information, some of it clearly from either department of registry or insurance company databases. They not only publish this data, they also include a handy map in case you wanted to drive buy and shoot me dead or something. The fact that the data could be used for identity theft is scary enough. But to have a nutcase who follows Bolt coming over uninvited is a little more scary. But what really pissed me off and forced me to bait these bastards once more is the data for the car is my dads. Not mine. And what the fuck would they do with a VIN of a engine number anyway? So they can double check when they plant a bomb?

So when Abbott went all sexist around his daughters and called it a dad moment, I went all sexist AT his daughters and called it a dad moment. This of course angered all the nut cases and the new address where they host the hit list was able to be tracked (thanks for all those tweets fellas! Made the logging easy) and the AFP have been notified.

SO what is real and what is not in the digital world. How can you tell when the media is lying to you or not? You can’t. You simply can not. And that is why I will continue to advocate going to the source. Do not read a report about a press conference; find the damn thing and watch it yourself.

You will be amazed at the difference between reality and the world according to the media. You will be amazed at the fake likes, the fake friends, the fake followers, the fake headlines. You will be amazed about the manipulated polls and the LNP tactic to intimidate and silence anyone who does not agree with them. And despite your best intentions, if you are fed incorrect data, you will come to an incorrect conclusion. But that is exactly where people like the LNP spin team want you to be. They want YOU to be intimidated. They want you to cower down before them.

Sorry fellas. I don’t cower. Not in my DNA.

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.A. Ghebranious 2013

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OMg I love your long opinionated article! we need more of those! Abbott is an absolute idiot for buying fake twitter followers. That trick worked in 2012… not anymore. SOOOO many politicians got busted doing it in USA yearrs ago, and people hated them for it, why would you do it Abbott once you know the terrible consequences ?!?!

Bravo! Thank you for your wonderful article! More please. It is just unbelievable what the likes of Abbott will do for power. One shudders to think what he will do if he gets hold of power! Hey look! I can see some more children being thrown overboard.

Loath the absolutely dishonest world we inhabit- cant really believe much info given ,need to validate every source etc at least the ALP offers some semblance of truth & the struggling ppl among us will get some benefits/ support…am voting ALP